ABSTRACT

British colonization in the tropics presents certain characteristics that are in striking contrast to the settlement of New England or the Middle Colonies. Codrington College was the only notable school in the British West Indies in the eighteenth century. The British soldiers who composed the expedition suffered terribly through disease and death and, when given the opportunity, were not disposed to settle down to an agricultural life. There is a passage in Seeley which, perhaps better than any other, gives the clue to the contrast and to the essential character of British colonization in the West Indies. “The continuance of the war with Spain necessitated a military government until 1664 when the first colonial assembly met. The white blood of the West Indies was being assimilated into the black far more rapidly than was the case in the plantation colonies of North America.